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Classicist Disputes My Analysis of Brian Muraresku's Joe Rogan Appearance

10/6/2020

37 Comments

 
Last week, I wrote about the recent appearance of Brian Muraresku on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss the use of psychedelic drugs in ancient times, particularly in the mixed drink known as kykeon served to initiates during the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece. Part of their conversation revolved around the 1978 book The Road to Eleusis, whose coauthor, Carl Ruck, consulted with and advised Muraresku in his own work. This past week, I heard from Ruck, who argued that my commentary was incorrect and has asked me to retract my blog post due to the “dismay and distress” it has caused his associates. He copied the email to Muraresku.
The core of the disagreement boils down to the issue of the textual evidence for whether Alcibiades was or was not prosecuted for drinking kykeon without a license, so to speak. You can read the background in my previous blog post. Ruck made two primary points, which I will go over. The first is that he believes me wrong to connect the many types of kykeon referenced in Greek literature, from the peasant drink to the sacred drink. This is a fair point. In truth, we don’t know the composition of the various mixtures that went by that name. Kykeon refers only to “stirred” or “mixed” drinks, and many concoctions passed under that name. However, the composition of the Eleusinian kykeon is not clearly established. Scholarly opinion varies greatly. Each element of Ruck’s 1978 argument has been disputed, and I am not in a position to sit as judge. Many agree with Ruck that the Eluesinian kykeon was a psychoactive sacred potion, but many others doubt this and prefer to see it as similar to the peasant drink, on the theory that it represents the simple fruits of the Earth associated with Demeter and Persephone, the goddesses of Eleusis. No definitive evidence exists to settle the issue, only suggestive texts. Either way, Ruck’s own evidence draws from a long tradition that the Greeks mixed their drinks—wine, milk, honey, etc.—with drugs, meaning that the Eleusinian kykeon was not necessarily unique in terms of its intoxicating power.
 
The other element of the dispute involves the question of why Alcibiades was placed on trial. Muraresku had said it was because he drank kykeon outside of Eleusis, and I quoted Plutarch to the effect that it was because he put on a drunken parody of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Ruck wishes me to clarify that Alcibiades’ imitation of the Mysteries was not intended as a parody, taking issue with the Loeb translation of Plutarch. Where the Loeb edition says Alcibiades was accused of “mutilating other sacred images, and of making a parody of the mysteries of Eleusis in a drunken revel” he would prefer us to read “castration of other statues and of imitating the Mysteries in drunkenness.” Here, he asks us to read “imitating” as performing the act of the Mysteries unsanctioned. The key word is “ἀπομίμησις,” or “imitation,” which the Loeb translator took to imply parody, at least from the perspective of Alcibiades’ accusers. (His intention would, essentially, be irrelevant since the accusation is the important part.) Greek isn’t my best language, and I confess that I did not research the etymology and philology of ἀπομίμησις in scanning the Loeb text, which is usually quite literal. He notes that the earlier text On the Mysteries of Andocides gives a similar account in which the event is portrayed as an unsanctioned enactment of the Mysteries: “your commander, Alcibiades, has been holding celebrations of the Mysteries in a private house” (1.11, trans. K. J. Maidmen). In 1.29, we hear explicitly that the crime was “profanation” of the Mysteries and committing “offense” against the Two Goddesses.
 
However, in stressing this point, Ruck actually makes mine, which is that the crime wasn’t drinking kykeon per se but profaning the sacred Mysteries. Since kykeon isn’t mentioned—except by implication, in the claim that his drinking party involved drunkenness—the degree to which you think the presence of a specific drink was definitive rests on your assumptions about how essential it was to the Mysteries.
 
So, as best I can tell, the issue was never drinking kykeon but rather the profanation of the Mysteries.
 
I leave it for you to decide how much weight to give each argument.
37 Comments
Nerd11135
10/6/2020 08:39:52 am

What should disturb and distress any academic is being associated with Hancock.

Reply
Kriss
12/13/2020 05:46:14 am

Nobody belived Copernicus either. Sometimes all you need to do is let go of beliefs and open up or mind to evidence to get a clearer view of the world.

Reply
Carl A. P. Ruck is wrong
10/6/2020 08:54:49 am

What does Ruck know - there are no magic mushrooms in the Bible. Full stop. I have read Ruck's books and seen his CD and they are all wrong. Laughably wrong.

Furthermore, the use of mind-expanding drugs within religions in the ancient world has not been fully examined or appreciated. How the use of entheogens fitted in with the fabric of society is what really counts and this is not being addressed.

Reply
Ken
10/6/2020 09:21:20 am

Other than "Ruck" who feels dissed, I really have to ask -"who gives a shit"

Reply
Nerd11135
10/6/2020 11:20:16 am

*raises hand* I do. Not enough to study it myself or to read extensively but I give at least a little bit of a shit.

This stuff is interesting in general, can be good food for the brain (far better than whatever the ancients were drinking or Hancock is smoking), and understanding the ancient past is useful to see where we come from and to assess present-day arguments about the degree to which where we go is or should be informed by where we came from.

Reply
Hospital steward obvious
10/6/2020 01:11:00 pm

You do since you took the time to read and comment and will now continue to argue the issue.

Reply
Not Kent
10/6/2020 02:07:34 pm

"Who gives a shit"?

I'm sure COVID has boiled down what we all give a shit about, and it's not COVID, or the election.

This right here is this shit.

Thanks, Jason. Absolutely fascinating. I'm sure it was just booze and satire.

❤️

Reply
Jim
10/6/2020 09:36:26 am

“dismay and distress”

Seriously ? The poor babies, how will they ever survive reading a countering point of view ?
Sounds like a cultish way of arguing his point, his interpretation or the highway, no dispute,,, drink the kykeon. (kool aid)

Reply
Brian
10/6/2020 01:02:51 pm

The ancient tradition regarding Alkibiades was certainly that he "mocked" the mysteries (and knocking the phalli off the hermae, if he did it, didn't help his case either). Because the mysteries were communal rites, part of a huge communal undertaking, profaning them by "performing" them in a private home seems fairly unlikely. Remembering the back-biting nature of Athenian politics in the 5th century BCE, the political hay made against the golden boy Alkibiades, and Alkibiades' pragmatic but treasonous flip-flopping, I'd say that you've made a good argument, Jason.

Reply
Darold knowles
10/6/2020 01:12:06 pm

There’s a certain regular commenter who discovered Google Translate and who now fancies himself as fluent in over 1,000 languages — perhaps he can provide his “expert” opinion regarding the meaning of “ἀπομίμησις.”

Reply
FLORIENT
10/6/2020 06:36:36 pm

It's a nonexistent word because the Japanese word for firefly is not accepted as a real word in Scrabble.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
10/6/2020 06:47:51 pm

Hi Jason -

Your comment is probably the first time anyone has paid attention to Dr. Ruck's work since the late 1970's..It started when he was at the Center for Hellenic Studies, if I remember correctly.

I do no have much comment, but having looked at Native American psychoactive drug use, it is interesting to note the differences among anthropologists working on Native American and ancient European psychoactive drug use. Another interesting item is the generational differences within the Native American nations, between young folks and their elders,

I really do not have much more to add, except to note that
ka-ke-u and ka-ke-we show up in Linear B tablets, alongside other terms. I really have no desire to contribute to the amateur hour that Graham is encouraging. I deal with impact events, which are deadly to everyone.

I am waiting for Brando, Dean, Mineo and Vampira.

Reply
Yes, overlooking this fact
10/6/2020 10:31:55 pm

Unlike the Europeans, who hid their use of drug-taking to communicate with the deities, the Native Americans were open about it all. It was nothing secret to Native Americans like it was to Europeans. Cortez found that out in South America.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
10/7/2020 01:05:08 pm

I'm sorry, overlooking this fact, you are making broad statements about ancient Europeans in both space and time.Those statements are not backed by the data.

In other words, you are projecting from Romans to all Europeans at all times. You may want to look at my "Etruscan Dictionary" on academia.

That noted, I have no intention of discussing this topic here at this time.

Yes, overlooking this fact
10/8/2020 10:14:04 am

R. G. Wasson was wrong

The South Americans openly displayed their drug-induced religious ceremonies,"the same" as in Europe, the Middle East, etc ??

Comets, Comets, Comets
10/8/2020 10:37:34 am

Are you a literalist, E.P.?

Quoting R. G. Wasson
10/8/2020 10:24:26 am

If our classical scholars were given the opportunity to attend the rite at Eleusis, to talk with the priestess, what would they not exchange for that chance? They would approach the precincts, enter the hallowed chamber, with the reverence born of the texts venerated by scholars for millennia. How propitious would their frame of mind be, if they were invited to partake of the potion! Well, those rites take place now, unbeknownst to the classical scholars, in scattered dwellings, humble, thatched, without windows, far from the beaten track, high in the mountains of Mexico, in the stillness of the night, broken only by the distant barking of a dog or the braying of an ass. Or, since we are in the rainy season, perhaps the Mystery is accompanied by torrential rains and punctuated by terrifying thunderbolts. Then, indeed, as you lie there bemushroomed, listening to the music and seeing the visions, you know a soul shattering experience, recalling as you do the belief of some primitive peoples that mushrooms, the sacred mushrooms, are divinely engendered by Jupiter Fulminans, the God of the Lightning-bolt, in the Soft Mother Earth.

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/wasson.htm

Reply
Anthony G.
10/8/2020 10:50:05 am

You are right. The drink is irrelevant. The true crime was publicly revealing celestial knowledge. The drug just provided a buzz to keep people coming back. Back then as today, people get hung up on, and protective of titles. A conference of disrespected phds can quickly turn into every proctologist's dream. A room full of...

Just ask the Head Custodial Engineer.

Reply
tom mellett
10/8/2020 06:29:53 pm

Well, Jason, I must thank you for giving me a golden (fleece?) opportunity to dust off my 40-year old ancient BA degree in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin. I specialized more in Greek than Latin, so let’s take on the etymology and philology of ἀπομίμησις.

(I actually just did blow some real dust off my trusted ancient copy of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, Abridged Edition --- but thanks be to Zeus the unabridged edition is online today.)

The first question arises: why didn’t the author use the root word μίμησις (a word we have imported directly into English as “mimesis”) without the prefix ἀπο-? Both words are translated as “imitation,” but surely the ἀπο- prefix must add something to the root meaning.

As a preposition, ἀπο means “from, of, away from, since, after”. Its Latin equivalent is ab. Think of Latin phrases like ab ovo (from the egg) or ab initio (from the beginning).

The prefix ἀπο- imparts the same meanings as above to the word it compounds, but can add another which informs the main point. Let’s look at 2 familiar words we have imported into English as ἀποκάλυψις (apocalypse) and ἀποθέωσις (apotheosis)

Calypsis is a state of being covered or hidden. Apo- moves us far away from being covered, thus unveiling or revealing. So here, the apo- definitely changes the meaning into its opposite, but not so with the second pair.

Both apotheosis and theosis give the same meaning of “deification, divinization” just as apomimesis and mimesis give the same meaning of “imitation.” Is there a difference between the pair? Etymology won’t tell us, so let’s move on to philology.

ἀπομίμησις is a rare word, but it does appear in the Timaeus of Plato and in the text attributed to Hippocrates called De Victu (On Nutrition) where there doesn’t seem to be any real difference between ἀπομίμησις and μίμησις.

However I did find a scholar who does find a distinction and this may well inform your imbroglio with Mr. Ruck.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/imitating-the-cosmos-the-role-of-microcosmmacrocosm-relationships-in-the-hippocratic-treatise-on-regimen/392AD594A5BD5BBEFCC8B8E81FF21820/core-reader

“Without going so far as to ascribe to ἀπομίμησις a specific meaning distinct from its uncompounded form [μίμησις], it is reasonable to think that the author intends to stress a particular aspect of the body/cosmos relationship of imitation, and that he intends to do so through the prefix ἀπό-.
In particular, I suggest that the compounded form is meant to convey an idea of hierarchy in the relation linking body and cosmos, where the cosmos is the superior original, and the body the inferior copy. For the relationship between nature and art, on the other hand, the Dietician is happy with simply asserting a likeness between the two.”

TOM: He’s talking Macrocosm/Microcosm and the imitative activity implicit in the Hermetic motto “As above, so below.” In Timeaus, a similar top-down Macro- to Microcosm interpretation as ἀπομίμησις indicates the activity of the demiurge or Craftsman creating our physical world (below) by imitating the divine archetypal forms (above).

Here another reference, in Spanish, where the author discusses the mystery of ἀπομίμησις in Timaeus (Part 3 of her paper) and translates it as “beyond imitation,” implying “transcending imitation” by which she means that the divine imitation of the Demiurge is well beyond mere human imitation.
http://revue-educatio.eu/wp/2018/09/29/misterio-y-cuidado-del-cuerpo-en-et-timeo-de-platon-y-su-valor-para-la-pedogogia/

So without further pseudo-scholastic ado on my part, I will summarize by saying that ἀπομίμησις can imply a hierarchical, top-down, vertical direction of the archetypes of the universe being imitated in a paler or lesser form on the earth and in the human body whereas μίμησις can be seen as a sideways horizontal relationship of two people simply mimicking or aping one another.

What better example of μίμησις vs. ἀπομίμησις than the great mirror scene of Groucho & Harpo in &ldq

Reply
tom mellett
10/9/2020 07:54:10 am

I see my Marx Bros. mimesis reference was truncated.

What better example of μίμησις vs. ἀπομίμησις than the great mirror scene of Groucho & Harpo in Duck Soup (1933)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTT-sy0aLg

Reply
T. Franke link
10/9/2020 10:29:36 am

Tom Mellett, congratulations to this remarkable attempt to reconstruct the meaning of apomimesis. Maybe you hit the nail on its head.

My experience with the reconstruction of such composite words is that it rarely works. Prepositions are very flexible in their meaning, and often you find that practiced language made another choice than he likely one. You can get an idea what it could have meant but you never know for sure until you find the word used in a real text.

Reply
Jim Davis
10/9/2020 11:39:28 am

"...but surely the ἀπο- prefix must add something to the root meaning."

In English, flammable and inflammable have identical meanings.

Reply
E.P. Grondine
10/9/2020 12:38:52 pm

Thanks you for this analysis.

So how exactly was "apocalypse" construced?

Reply
T. Franke link
10/9/2020 06:57:39 am

Seems reasonable. This is a very special question and without diving into it, it is really problematic to make any stable statement about it.

Thucycides is the main and earliest source but says nothing special about the desecration of the mysteries, only that it was an accusation as such.

Plutarch Alcibiades 19.1 is the next source with the relevant passage.

Concerning apomimesis, it definitively includes serious meanings. See e.g. the corresponding verb in Logeion dictionary (LSJ):

ἀπομῑμ-έομαι,
A express by imitation, copy or represent faithfully

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%E1%BC%80%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BC%CE%AD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%B9

My reading of the Plutarchian Greek passage is, that the celebrating in a drunken state ("with wine" / "applying wine" / "at wine") was the problem, not the celebrating itself. So it is meant as a serious celebration.

... καὶ μυστηρίων παρ᾽ οἶνον ἀπομιμήσεις τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου καὶ τῶν φίλων κατηγοροῦντας.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.+Alc.+19.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0181

In Cornelius Nepos Alcibiades 3.2 it is said, that Alcibiades celebrated mysteries in his own house, and this celebrating at home was considered the problem and the desecration. Also here, the celebration is meant seriously, only the circumstances are inappropriate.

Reply
T. Franke link
10/9/2020 01:05:53 pm

PS:

I just realized that the explanation of celebrating "at home" in Cornelius Nepos (in Latin, not Greek) is of great importance. Because the original Greek phrase in Plutarch "par' oinon", i.e. at/with wine, is almost identical to "par' oikon" which means: at home. Greek kappa and ny are written almost identical, only a small line makes the crucial difference, they are written like our K and V.

So, our first conclusion is: There was a common Greek text as source for both, Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos. One of them read "par oinon", the other one read "par oikon". This we can say with very high likelihood.

Next question is of course: Which version is correct? Now, usually the more ancient source. And this is ..... surprisingly the Latin Cornelius Nepos. He lived ca. 100-28 BC, whereas Plutarch lived ca. 45-125 AD. Of course, this gives us no proof, only a likelihood. We have not enough circumstantial evidence.

So, our second conclusion is: With a certain likelihood, the problem of desecrating the mysteries was not wine at all, but simply that Alcibiades celebrated at home.

Reply
Bezalel
10/9/2020 08:46:32 am

Jason is on the right track

In most instances, the sanctuary in which the mystery plays were being performed was strongly guarded. Profanation or exposure of the mysteries to the uninitiated outside world incurred the penalty of death

Let that sink in

These modern idiots who place so much focus on drugs and alcohol everywhere in history (with the mysteries as primary context), need to wake up literally.

If you cannot induce an altered state of consciousness WITHOUT the use of drugs then you're an amateur

Get off the stage

Reply
T. Franke link
10/9/2020 01:24:08 pm

Bezalel, your observation confirms my hypothesis (see comment above, with PS):

The original text did not say "par' oinon", but "par' oikon". This means, the accusation was not, that Alcibiades celebrated the mysteres "with wine", but "at home".

Reply
The Bottom Line
10/9/2020 03:56:22 pm

Let's not forget the psychedelics folks

Tom A. Hawk
10/11/2020 06:14:06 am


Anyone who has been initiated into a college fraternity has celebrated some form of the mysteries. If you understand and comprehend the allegories presented, one realizes you are being taught, and acting out celestial knowledge. A "Magic Carpet Ride" is not needed to induce a near-death experience.


"Last night I held Aladdin's lamp
So I wished that I could stay
Before the thing could answer me
Well, someone came and took the lamp away
I looked
All around
A lousy candle's all I found"

Reply
Kent
10/11/2020 06:11:50 pm

Uh, yeah, no. Anyone who's been initiated into a college fraternity is an idiot. The HBF Omega Psi Phi (?) is a particularly egregious example, branding their members on the left shoulder. The idiots who die due to alcohol poisoning really get a close-up look at "the Mysteries".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/brand.htm

Bezalel
10/12/2020 12:21:47 am

"At midnight I beheld the sun..."
Elias Ashmole

Bart Stuck link
10/11/2020 09:43:05 am

Jason is gaining a well deserved following of seekers of truth!

Reply
Charles Verrastro link
10/11/2020 03:24:10 pm

Gawd, this thread brought back bad flashbacks from my Classical Greek classes. My instructor was heavy into the Alexandrian grammarians and I just kept thinking- "Geez, even they aren't sure how to read half of the Classical authors. It reminded me of the Talmudic torture of Biblical texts.
And for what it's worth I think the various writers who delve into the use of psychoactive substances in ancient religions have some merit. As a child I started drawing the Temptation in the Garden of Eden scene and pictured the serpent wound around the trunk not of a tree but a huge Amanita Muscaria mushroom. When I saw the Wasson and Allegro pictures of an early French painting (the Plaincourat fresco) that looked remarkably like my drawing I was a bit shocked, even though many specialist scholars have made it clear that it was a stylized pine tree with parasol type crowns like those common to my Sicilian Grandfather's countryside.

Reply
Kent
10/11/2020 07:45:39 pm

Ignoring your story for the moment (that's code for forever) the Talmud/s is/are the original Satanic Verses/Versus.

Reply
T. Franke link
10/12/2020 07:29:29 am

The Alexandrian Grammarians? "From the beginning, a typical custom, and methodological bias of this tradition was to focus their commentary and analysis on de-contextualized sentences."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrine_grammarians

No wonder they were confused.

Pre-Greek Sicily also had a tradition of religious ceremonies including drinking of wine, cf. Marco Camera, “Sikelo-Geometric” Pottery between Indigenous Tradition and Greek Influences, 2011.

Reply
Kent
10/18/2020 10:08:11 pm

Brian Muraresku occupies the first half of coasttocoastam Sunday October 18 2020.

Reply
Kent
11/22/2020 11:48:51 am

In the interview, at minute 34 B.M. states that microphones are "Greek technology". That said he appears to have a good command of Sanskrit.

Reply

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